In 2013 the Futures Fund supported a professional development scholarship for Adam Powell who was doing his PGCE/PCET at the University.
With the Futures Fund support, Adam was able to fund his experience as a football coaching and PE teaching position at the Winpenney School in Mexico City. The scholarship helped significantly towards funding his flight ticket, living costs in Mexico and his FA Level 2 Coaching Award.
Adam explains: “The company I worked for didn’t cover the flights, living costs, medical insurance and any coaching badges. I was very fortunate to have been given the financial help to fulfil a once in a life time opportunity.”
The now Sunderland graduate was required to undertake up to 40 hours per week football coaching. His typical day would consist of planning and preparing specialist Coerver Coaching lessons for an hour before delivering them for 4 to 5 hours.
“I found myself working in hot conditions, high altitude and working with children from all different cultures and different abilities. It took a while to settle into my environment but I soon adapted to the new lifestyle”, the 25-year-old describes.
After a couple of months working in Mexico City, Adam wanted to be more involved in the PE department and offered to do more hours. His manager gave him the opportunity to relocate to Monterrey, a city in the North of Mexico, to work at the Madison International School.
At the new school, Adam was given his own PE classes for the first time since his teacher training. He was responsible for planning and delivering PE Lessons to Grades 6, 7, 8 and 9 (12-15 year olds), Monday to Friday and up to 5 classes per day. In the afternoons, he was responsible for 1997, 2004 and 2007 Boys Football Academy classes each day and they also played competitive fixtures every Thursday or Friday.
Adam was determined to make the most of his experience there: “My hours of work had doubled because effectively I had two full time positions however I wanted to make the most of my experience and take full advantage of every opportunity.
"I enjoyed working with my PE classes and football academies on a daily basis; I learnt about working with people from different cultures such as getting to know about them as individuals, their behaviours, attitudes, values and testing their sporting physical and mental abilities.”
The graduate adds: “Overall, the experience working as a PE Teacher and Football coach in Mexico was simply fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed working both in Mexico City and Monterrey, I was fortunate enough to visit quite a lot of the tourist attractions and experience the Mexican culture.”
This experience in Mexico, led Adam to a new challenge further away. In July 2013, he took a position at the British International School of Kyiv in Ukraine as a full time PE teacher where he spent 15 months. Now he is back to the UK where he works as BTEC Tutor of sport and academy coach at Oxford United F.C.
Adam states: “Without the support from the Futures Fund committee the dream of working in Mexico wouldn’t have been possible and I don’t believe I would be where I am now.”